After holding police at bay for about three hours, a robbery suspect was taken into custody when officers pulled him from the attic of cellular phone store and he was hoisted down from the roof of a small strip center Friday afternoon in northwest Houston.

The incident began about 9:10 a.m. when two men armed with a gun went into the Boost mobile cellular phone store in the 7500 block of N. Wayside near Ley, said Jodi Silva, a spokeswoman for the Houston Police Department.

Silva said workers at the store ran out and the suspects remained in the building. Someone at a food store adjacent to the Boost store called 911 to report the robbery. When officers arrived, Silva said they took one of the suspects into custody quickly, but the other man remained in the building and refused to come out.

SWAT officers were called to the scene and used a loudspeaker to coax the man to surrender peacefully, but he did not comply. About noon, officers went into the building and found the man in the attic. They pulled him out through the roof.

Silva said a Houston Fire Department ladder truck was called to the scene for the man to walk down the ladder from the roof. However, she said, he told police he had hurt his shoulder and leg when he fell in the attic and didn't want to walk down the ladder.

He was placed in a Stokes basket and firefighters lowered him down from the roof using the ladder.

Silva said the man was taken to a nearby hospital to be treated for his injuries. Details about the injuries and his condition were not released.

A revolver, Silva said, was found at the scene.

Several people who gathered near the scene of the standoff said it was frightening to see such a situation in their neighborhood. When the man was taken into custody and lowered from the roof some applauded and said they were glad the suspect had been caught.

"It's happening so regularly," said Wanda White, who lives across the street from the store. "I guess people are just getting desperate. It's scary."

Brenda Williams said if the suspects were trying to rob somebody, that would be wrong.